ABSTRACT Like other philosophical traditions, what we call French spiritualism is a complicated constellation of thinkers who developed partially divergent answers to shared themes or concerns. In order to avoid easy generalizations and artificial labels, this article aims to explore the many-voiced character of this tradition by focusing on a debate on the notion of ‘liberté morale’ that took place in 1903 at the Société française de philosophie. Given the number and the calibre of the participants, as well as the (...) centrality of the discussed notion, this episode sets the perfect stage for an in-situ assessment of the inner fault lines underlying any superficial unity in the French spiritualist tradition. (shrink)

La famille Poincaré trouve ses racines en Lorraine, dans les départements de Meurthe-et-Moselle, de la Meuse et des Vosges. Arrancy-sur-Crusne, Bar-le-Duc, Landaville, Longuyon, Lunéville, Nancy, Neufchâteau, Remenoncourt, Xirocourt sont quelques-unes des communes ayant vu naître des ancêtres des deux Poincaré les plus connus, Henri et Raymond. Cet article propose une histoire de la famille d’Henri Poincaré sur le temps long et prend appui sur une vaste synthèse des informations généalogiques existantes. Dans un premier temps j’explore rapidement les origines anciennes du (...) nom « Poincaré » et certaines branches indirectes de la famille ; j’analyse ensuite de manière plus fine les parcours des acteurs principaux de la branche directe, en particulier ceux du père, de l’oncle et du grand-père paternels d’Henri Poincaré. Je termine ce parcours en me focalisant rapidement sur les mariages et les descendants respectifs d’Henri Poincaré et de sa sœur Aline. Un tel essai est structuré autour d’une double ambition : d’une part, apporter une contribution à la biographie de Poincaré centrée sur la sphère privée ; d’autre part, caractériser finement le milieu social dans lequel Poincaré a pu évoluer au cours de sa vie. (shrink)

Duhem is often described as an anti-realist or instrumentalist. A contrary view has recently been expressed by Martin (1991) (Pierre Duhem: Philosophy and History in the Work of a Believing Physicist (La Salle, IL: Open Court)), who suggests that this interpretation makes it difficult to understand the vantage point from which Duhem argues in La science allemande (1915) that deduction, however impeccable, cannot establish truths unless it begins with truths. In the same spirit, the present paper seeks to establish that (...) Duhem is at any rate not the kind of anti-realist he is often presented as being, and that his views are like those Quine sees fit to call realist. An interpretation of Duhem's views on explanation and precision in science, and their bearing on the epistemological status of theory, is advanced which leads naturally into his critique of conventionalism. His attitude towards atomism, which should not be judged from a post-1925 perspective, is considered part of the unified view he strove after and appropriately called Duhem's physicalism, standing in contrast to the kind of reductionist conception usually associated with atomism. (shrink)

Poincaré’s conventionalism has been interpreted in many writings as a philosophical position emerged by reflection on certain scientific problems, such as the applicability of geometry to physical space or the status of certain scientific principles. In this paper I would like to consider conventionalism as a philosophical position that emerged from Poincaré’s scientific practice. But not so much from dealing with scientific problems, as from the use of two specific methodologies proper to modern mathematics and the modern natural sciences: methodological (...) structuralism and the hypothetical-deductive method—thus, as a philosophical position which emerged from a way (or rather, two ways) ofdoingscience. With this approach, I try to deepen the analysis of connections between Poincaré’s scientific practice and his philosophy. (shrink)

This article was produced as an introduction to a Portuguese translation of an article by Henri Poincaré titled "The new conceptions of matter". The aim of this introduction was to shortly summarize Poincaré's scientific and philosophical production, to approach the circumstances on which the text was originally presented and, finally, to analyze the relationship - or the lack of it - that Poincaré establishes between science and materialism.

How was Poincaré’s conventionalism connected to his relationism? How, in other words, is it the case that the basic principles of geometry and mechanics are, ultimately, freely chosen conventions and that, at the same time, science reveals to us the structure of the world? This lengthy study aims to address these questions by setting Poincaré’s philosophy within its historical context and by examining in detail Poincaré’s developing views about the status and role of conventions in science and the status and (...) role of relations in science. It is argued that Poincaré was a neither a rampant conventionalist nor a pure structuralist. But he was both a conventionalist and a relationist, aiming to delineate a position which allowed room for both freely, but not arbitrarily, chosen constitutive principles of science and the acquisition of objective, though, relational knowledge of the natural world. (shrink)